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Australia harbours a rich endemic orchid flora with many threatened species.

Orchidaceae are the largest monocot family worldwide, and are among Australia’s ten most diverse plant families.

Several orchid lineages underwent major radiations on the continent, in particular within the terrestrial orchid tribe Diurideae (e.g. Sun orchids, Leek orchids, Spider orchids) and the epiphytic mega genus Dendrobium.

This talk presents broad-scale molecular studies in Australia’s hyperdiverse orchid lineages to clarify phylogenetic relationships, elucidate trait evolution and examine patterns of spatio-temporal evolution.

Katharina Schulte’s main research interests are in molecular systematics and evolutionary biology of tropical plants. She is leading the orchid research program at the Australian Tropical Herbarium (ATH, Cairns).

Katharina conducted her PhD at the Goethe University Frankfurt, in conjunction with the Research Institute Senckenberg (Germany), where she also conducted her first postdoc phase. In 2010 she came to Australia to work as CSIRO/JCU Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australian Tropical Herbarium (ATH). Since 2016 she  has been a CSIRO National Research Collections Australia (NRCA) Research Scientist at the ATH.

Evolution, Ecology and Genetics Seminar Series